Rescued hostage tells CNN about psychological abuse endured during eight months of Hamas captivity

When the Gaza sunshine was at its hottest, Andrey Kozlov said the Hamas fighters would cover him with blankets, leaving him to stew in his sweat. When he asked about his family, they would say they had forgotten him. When they pulled the blindfold from his eyes, they said they would kill him and film his murder.

In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Bianna Golodryga, the 27-year-old described the intense psychological – and some physical – abuse he suffered at the hands of Hamas.

He cannot bring himself to share all that happened to him and the two other hostages he was kept with during his eight months of captivity in Gaza.

After being snatched from the Nova music festival on October 7, Kozlov, a Russian-Israeli citizen, said he was tied up for “three days with rope, then until the middle of December with chains.” During these months he was subjected to “creative” forms of punishment: One guard “told us a lot that Israel wants to kill us” and that they were a problem from which Israel was trying to rid itself.

Kozlov strove not to believe the lies, he said, but the result was that, when Israeli soldiers last month burst into the building in which he was being held, he thought they had been sent to kill him.

Instead, it was a stunning rescue operation that brought him and the two others home.

In his interview with CNN, Kozlov detailed his months of captivity in Gaza, the psychological torture he weathered, the threats he faced, and his desire for Israel and Hamas to strike a deal to release the remaining hostages.

KEY QUOTES FROM KOZLOV:

On how he is doing physically and emotionally, one month since his rescue:

“I feel great. Every day, I feel much better. Every day I feel much better than the last one. I appreciate all that I have right now. And I don’t forget nothing. But some days, even if I feel good, in some moments, suddenly, I can start to cry. In some days, I can’t stop by maybe 10 minutes, maybe 20. It’s like flow. I don’t stop it. I give it to get out from me all this energy and all these emotions. And if I hear some song that I remember, if I see some photos from my previous life before Gaza, that I remember, of course, when I was in Gaza, it’s the main reasons of my tears.”

On realizing he was being taken to Gaza on October 7:

“It was a condition of shock. I was not scared. I didn’t realize like what’s going on. Like, what? With me, really? It’s going on with me right now? I just came here newly. Now, after one year? It’s impossible. But we already in the car and we’re going to Gaza.”

On his first day held hostage in Gaza:

“They took us to second floor of this building, they put us under the window and they started to eat in front of us. So we have fabric… I tried to move it from one through the one layer of fabric I saw something and they started to eat on the floor. They have like a table like this and they say asra’ asra’ (faster in Arabic), told something in Arabic. Of course, nobody understand what’s going on. And in some moment one guy he was like, I was really scared about him. I was really afraid. And he took fabric from my eyes and showed me with signs [I kill you] tomorrow. You, I will film you and I will kill you. It was in the first day of our being in Gaza. And I understood like. I need to live my last day with thought that I will be murdered by some Arabs, and it will be a video and all Israel and all like all world will see this moment. The last moment of my life. Okay. What can we do? We tied up our legs and hands.”

On the conditions of his captivity:

“The first three days was with ropes. Until middle of December we were in chains. Hands like this maybe 20 centimeters between them and legs like 40, 50, to be able to go to the toilet and to move a little bit. They were afraid that we will run away, maybe I don’t know.”

“They have like big knife, big stick, Kalashnikov in other room. You understand that if you do something wrong, they can do something. You just lie on the mattress, sit on the floor. Don’t talk, don’t walk in chains…In some places we need to ask permission to do our things in toilet. Like every time, ‘can I go to the toilet?’. Some guy with mask, ‘yes’. You open door, you go. Every time every day. And you don’t understand like what will happen to you? When we will go home? And we ask them, what’s going on outside. They informed us but from their point of view.”

“He said Aboud, put blankets, really thick blankets, it was middle of May on Andrey, and you will spend like this one hour and a half. It will be punishment for him. With blankets in the middle of May. They don’t have air conditioner. They have ventilator, but they use it, we don’t. And asked him like I understood, I will not do this anymore. He didn’t care. You will be here. I was like, trying to breathe through the space between mattress and blankets.”

On what he could hear happening outside from where he was held:

“In some morning, like every morning until February, we heard some shooting like maybe one kilometer from us. Maybe a little bit more, maybe less. I don’t know. A lot of bombs. In the night, you wake up. Like it was a lot of times in different places. You woke up. You wake up and because of the really big bomb, fall down. Near to your place, like 50 meters maybe 100. It’s like sound from hell. You wake up you have heartbreak. [beats chest] Like pulse. Maybe 200 I don’t know. You have eyes like this [opens eyes] and everybody woke up and we don’t talk. Only one thought that we have, I have, probably everybody had. Maybe the next bomb will be ours, and you don’t know nothing. You are in chains. Some guys with masks near you. Bombs, shooting. You don’t have information. You don’t have nothing.”

On the fear he felt hearing bombs and artillery outside the building he was held in:

“First three months we were afraid of every bomb that we hear. Okay, every time you started to hide in the corners of our room and terrorists like ‘haha what are you afraid?’ In Arabic but we already understood it. Probably they ask us why we’re afraid. And you try to explain them, it’s the bombs. And we know what’s going on, they told us how much people die around. And you understand maybe in one minute, bomb will fall and we will die, maybe in one hour, maybe suddenly.”

On the psychological taunts his captors subjected him to:

“I try not to believe in this. I was sure that my family’s looking for me. I was sure that Israel doesn’t want to kill us but they told us this a lot. In some of the monsters you hear a lot of bombs they say a lot of people die right now. They told us our friends die, Israelis died, like three Israelis today, in two days, one Israeli. In a couple of days, another four.”

On his rescue and being reunited with his loved ones:

“I can tell you a little bit more how we came to Israel and I saw a lot of people when we got into the hospital.  They suggest me to see my brother, my girlfriend, my best friend who was my roommate and I said of course of course I want to see them like immediately. I was surprised that they are already here. What is going on? And after in five minutes they suggested me to call my mother and I was like yes give me the phone now now! They gave me and I was like mama I survived! I did all my best to survive.”

“I was so afraid I’d never see them again. I imagined them. My mother and father and brother, they will not hear the words I love you anymore.”